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20000506 DontLetSleepingDogs
Don't Let Sleeping Dogs Lie Role Call Fingle Shimmerstone 3rd/7th Gnome Cleric/Wizard Richard Jacobsen Prince Donner 6th/5rd Human Fighter/Wizard John Speck Ashlun 7th Human Fighter Matt Miller Grackle 6th/5th Half-Elf Fighter/Rogue Mark Whisler Kill'Dar 9th/3rd Elf Wizard/Fighter Rick DiRicco Colin 12th Human Fighter Jim Yonemura Kieran 7th/4th Half-Elf Cleric/Wizard Ray Chiang Travian 8th Human Paladin Robert Giedt Prelude Guest Scribe: Lucia (Celeste Young) More time is spent making changes to match the latest news on the Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition News website. Character conversion accompanied by background Soul Calibur noises (courtesy of Mr. Dean Tribble). In the meantime, Matt has rolled up a temporary character. He then proceeds to roll up a shitload of really good stuff, including +3 chain, small +1 shield, a ring of regeneration, rod of alertness, oil of fiery burning, +1 long sword (!). Session Summary Fingle has enough xp from the last game to get to 8th Illusionist, but is informed by Kyle that he can't use it yet. Richard: So when can we apply our experience? Kyle: When you're in a safe place where you can rest and concentrate. John: How about now? Kyle: tolerantly Now you're in an embattled tower in the middle of a siege. Pause John: How about now? When we last left our heroes, the Black Lions had taken control of the wall around the inner city, and was working through the forces in the inner city. Many things are on fire, and the air hazy and filled with the noises of battle. Donner's group has returned from their battle at the Keep, and the interior of the Keep is on fire. Ander is dead; Travian has acquired a (dead) head in a helmet. Grackle is instructed to continue to keep an eye on the Keep for as long as his polymorph is still running. He's surveys the Keep in eagle form, and briefly checks out the inner city which is in flames, but not before begging for some healing. He can see two main groups of orcs engaging the Aquitaine's forces, one from inside the inner city, and the other harrying the outside troops as they are trying to make it inside the inner city walls. The vanguard of the Aquitainian troops arrives. Prince Donner issues somewhat garbled instructions to the fighters to send archers up on the walls to help the Lions and post infantry to guard the ladders going up the walls. The rest of the heavy infantry is sent into the thick of the fighting to help the Black Lions. Prince Donner's group tries to decide whether to rest for 8 hours, help the Black Lions fight the orcs (and clear the inner city), or heal up as much as possible and return to finish the job at the Keep. Additionally, it's critical that the Aquitainian troops make it into the inner city and the gate closes behind them safely. Hagal has seen Prince Donner's group return from the Keep toting a dead body and obviously tired; he dispatches one of his best fighters, Ashlun, to help the party. Ashlun shows up healed to full, and Prince Donner eyes his, um, endowments. The message from Hagal is that the worst is over. They're slogging through orogs (not easy), but they're making slow progress. What's going on inside the Keep? Take Ashlun, he's the best I have. Democratically (i.e. with only a bit of arguing), the group decides to go back to the Keep. (Kill-Dar loses the vote). Kieran is left behind to supervise the closing of the gate (particularly since we don't know which spells he has left). Travian takes this moment to examine his trophy head. The helmet is magic, but not evil or good. It's former bearer had more than just orc, um, blood, running in his veins. As the party takes one last look at the battle in the inner city, the gatehouse seems secure, the archers on the walls are a bit unsure of where to fire, and the orcs outside the wall are starting to fall back. After about 20 minutes, 500-800 troops still need to make it through the gate. The fighting line seems a bit more ragged, but it's really hard to see through the smoke. Donner dispatches Colin (with Fingle driving the carpet) to issue commands to the Aquitainian forces. The fighting is chaotic, but Colin attempts to get the cavalry to pull back behind the gate so they can sally forth from the gate when needed. The cavalry fighters ask for infantry reinforcements to take their place, so gained ground won't be lost. Fingle notes that he doesn't see any orog commanders while flying around. (They are known as a stupid, fight-until-death race (unlike orcs who will flee when they know they're outmatched)). Fingle drops a monster summoning near someone who looks somewhat responsible in hopes of confusing their ranks. In the confusion, they managed to locate the heavy infantry. They seem to be fighting well-still stacked deep-not as strong as the Black Lions, but holding. Colin asks the infantry to send reinforcements to the cavalry, and they ask for some archery cover. references to a computer puzzle game are now confirmed. John kicks himself for mentioning it. Colin and Fingle manage to find a group of archers, and send them off to help the infantry. In general, Colin seems better at issuing orders to the troops than the Prince. (This is not surprising; even the King is known to have a military commander to help him.) The party figures out how to get everyone to the Keep over the fighting. Travian, Donner, Grackle, and Fingle take the carpet and look around for a safe landing. Grackle and Fingle are dropped near the dead zone (out of line of sight of the Keep) and hide. The others arrive without incident. The Keep's wall is about 15 feet think, 40 feet tall and protected by glyphs (as demonstrated when they first assaulted). The inviting garden area around the wall is actually a kill zone designed to help defend the Keep from external attacks. Fingle goes up closer to the wall of the keep to see if the glyph where they last entered has been replaced. As he nears, two arrows go whizzing by. Fingle is able to spot where the shots are coming from. The glyph has not been replaced, and as he waits there, another round of arrows (more than two shots) come by him. One nicks his arm for small damage. Fingle sees three different active arrow slits, two slits on the second floor and one on the third. There are approx four stories of arrow slits. They decide to send Grackle in to take a look at who or what (structurally) is inside the wall. John: So what I really want to do it toodle around inside that manor and kill things. Rick: Are you saying that as the prince or are your fingers up indicating out-of-character speech? John: Uh, let me think about this. Grackle, Fingle, and Ashlun go straight up on the carpet to take a look at the manor. Grackle drives the carpet while Fingle throws up a silent image of a column of smoke to disguise their recon. Smoke from fires covers most of the area. Fingle sees three giants (one has two heads). Two of them appear to be cradling bow-related weapons (one of them is the two-headed giant), and the third is holding a handful of what appears to be shot (probably cannonballs at this distance). The giants look bigger than ettins (about 20 feet tall). They're concentrating and scanning above the walls, but their vision is occluded by drifting smoke clouds. All three are standing in front of the entrance to the manor. There are clear holes (from burning) in the manor roof. Most of the smoke is coming from the manor and the pile of fitted rock. Grackle takes the carpet clockwise around the Keep, trying to keep the giants on the other side of the handy drifting smoke clouds. The recon group flies over the inner city (to stay clear of the Keep) and an arrow whistles by-a stray group of orogs on a rooftop has spotted the group and is firing. No one is hurt. As they approach the Keep again, the group sees similar information to what they saw earlier. There's another giant (possibly part of the same group seen before) in front of the manor cradling one of the arrow-like weapons. The top floor of the wall of the Keep isn't enclosed; it looks crenellated but there is a gap between the roof and the sides of the wall, and the roof has burned off in areas. The floor is solid. Orogs are bustling around on the ground and appear to be working hard. While they scouting is going on, a group of orogs stumbles across the ground team. It's not pretty. sounds of orogs exploding Prince Donner checks for valuables, and grabs a large wooden shield. When the recon party returns, the group decides to take the Keep gatehouse and open the gate to get Black Lions through (much as they did with the inner city). The plan: fly over the top floor of wall where the glyph was cleared, head to gatehouse, and try to open the gates. Theoretically the party can deal with the known mechanical traps in the gate tower. One difficulty will be avoiding the armed giants. Colin and Fingle fly back to let the Black Lion commander know that we're going to need their help with the Keep gatehouse. As they're flying over the city, arrows fly towards the carpet from groups of orogs moving through the streets (approx a dozen stragglers). As they get closer to the front lines, Kill-Dar is hit by an arrow. They find Hagal in the back lines, and report on their plans for the Keep. Hagal is reluctant to send troops in towards the Keep because the Black Lions' control of the wall is tenuous in spots, critical to keeping the outside orc troops from overrunning the inner city, and they are being assaulted by orogs from inside the city. It's critical that they secure the city by nightfall, or they will lose the city. They fly to talk to Keiran, and he tells the group that he's been using the cavalry to demoralize the orcs when they press too close to the wall. He points out that he hasn't seen any spellcasters in the fight, and warns that they may all be holed up in the Keep. His hypothesis is that the lumpy building (inside the Keep) is some kind of temple. On the way back to the group, Colin is hit by an arrow. Grackle heads into the Keep for some more recon. He takes the +3 ring of protection, goes invisible (improved inviso), takes into gaseous form, and seeps in through an arrow slit. He seeps over an orog (ew), and sees orogs at every arrow slit. This level of the wall has a heavy wooden ceiling. He heads for the courtyard and sees three war trolls standing around a small group of three unarmored orogs loaded with totems. One of them is old, armored, permanently scowling and is drawing something with his finger on the wall with what appears like blood. He's got a totem of All-Seeing Gruumsh. Grackle briefly considers sneak attacking the shaman. Grackle notes that it's taking the orog a long time to draw the glyph, which seems strange given that he knows it shouldn't take long to draw a glyph. Grackle heads past the group (which includes a few orogs that seem specially outfitted in armor) and sees another group of three orogs ambling towards him, seemingly interested in the glyph setting. He can see the main courtyard, and notes four giants. Two have two heads (the ones with one head are bigger). One of each type has a ballista, the other has handfuls of rocks/shot. There is miscellaneous dismantled rock-throwing equipment in the area. The "barracks" opposite the "temple" doesn't have visible guards around it. There is a lot of commotion in the Keep, and people are running towards the manor with buckets of water. Four orogs in front of the manor are watching the activity. Grackle can see people posted at regular intervals along the walls. Grackle passes the gate tower and doesn't see an entrance from the courtyard. He continued to the barracks, keeping careful watch on the giants. They are keeping their attention focused on the skies. The barracks are dark inside (he looks through an arrow slit). Grackle continues towards the manor, and notes a lot of orogs going into and out of the manor. However, none of the other buildings have people going into or out of them, and none of them is guarded. Orogs are carrying water into the manor, and debris out. Grackle goes gaseous and goes inside the manor without incident. In the main foyer, orogs are heading up a grand staircase. The foyer leads into a main receiving hall, and has side doors. Behind the main staircase is another staircase leading down, which Grackle takes. At the bottom of the stairs is a war troll, confirming his suspicion that they have been placed at key points in the Keep. Now underground in what was once a cellar area, Grackle sees a doorway that might have led to a wine cellar as well as two new passageways leading away from this area. The wine cellar looks like it's been ransacked. The orogs moving throught his area look like they're changing guard and are on the alert. Grackle follows the tunnel towards the Keep gate, and comes to a T. Posted there is one war troll, two orogs with totems, and two specially outfitted orogs. Traffic is only going to the left (towards the barracks). Grackle heads to the right, and is sure that he's no longer under the manor. He comes to a door that has a defaced lightning bolt design. A Twisted Eye design has been scrawled over it. Behind the door he hears heavy breathing, and beast noises from multiple throats. He smells sulfur and brimstone. He heads back down the other corridor towards the barracks, gets jostled, and goes gaseous before anyone can hit him. He leaves a growing commotion behind him. The passage opens into a room with a war troll guarding, stairs going up, and a door on the other side. There are barrels for liquid, dry goods (probably food), and weapon racks. Through the door is another hallway continuing in the same direction. He starts heading up the stairs and hears a huge orog commotion upstairs. He goes gaseous and heads up. There's a central barracks area, and a hallway around the area that features arrow slits facing into the room and out of the building. (Thus explaining the silence when he first peered into the building from the outside.) He leaves the building through an arrow slit, reassumes his normal form, and heads back towards the wall where he came in. As he approaches where the shaman was, everyone is focused on the wall. Some horrible being is straining out of the wall towards the shaman, but is restrained by the glyph. Light seems to fade strangely around the tall, gangly, twisted being. The shaman seems to be negotiating or bargaining with the thing, and everyone around is staring with slack-jaws. Grackle heads for another arrow slit, and seems to see the strange beast looking towards him. Rick: It's like I'm at the movies and I can't shout at the screen! Celeste: I'm going to throw up in a second if nothing happens. John: How tough could Demogorgon be under 3e rules? Grackle returns to the party without further incident. Richard rolls a 45 in spellcraft. This is checked and amended to 33. It's agreed that that was a planar ally, and people can only talk to demons from similar planar alignments. Planar allies can only be brought to fulfill one job-it's sent by your God from his plane to help you, so won't necessarily turn on whoever summons it. Grackle reports on his recon, and suggests that there are tunnel leading from the Keep into the city. While the party is debating on what to do, Colin sneaks off with Ashlun and confirms that the wall is now magic (where is wasn't before), and now evil. Kill'Dar gets on the bug with invisibility, heads towards the previous entry spot, and casts detect magic on the wall area. His spell confirms what Colin and Ashlan reported. He goes 80 feet in the air and looks down at the wall-and sees nothing (there's a ton of smoke just hanging over the Keep). Kill'Dar keeps circling the keep, but can't see anything. He eventually decides to fire towards where Grackle said the manor roof was burned through. One fireball goes through the roof of the manor, and the other goes into the square where the giants were. The group confirms that it's him when he returns to the group, and looks nervously behind him for signs of any pursuing extra-dimensional beasts. Highlights of the Evening "I shall call him, mini-Ray" - by Robert on Mark, as Mark ruled before the information was actually checked. GM's quote of the night: "I'll tell you when I'm listening again." Foes Fought Base Experience: